Thankful

November is a special month in which we are really reminded to think about all the things we are thankful for. This year I am especially thankful for family. The army allowing us to move from Germany to Fort Lewis to be closer to our family a little over a year ago served it's purpose well. Being closer to family has given us the support and often times assistance we need to get through it all.
This year we spent Thanksgiving with my family. It was an interesting time, but the food was delicious. On the day of Thanksgiving when we sat down to eat Gunnar started screaming and yelling that his ear hurt. I thought he was just tired and not wanting to eat so I put him in bed for his nap. He woke up and seemed ok. He said his ear hurt but he definitely wasn't screaming about it, he wanted to play. Then came dinner. Same story. He started screaming bloody murder. This time he would not allow anyone to touch him but me an there was no calming him down. He cried for at least 30 minutes. I called our on call doctor to get approval for taking him to the ER and we were off, he never cries like this.
Turned out one ear was really hurting. For my lack of doctor terminology I will explain it for the rest of us. He had the normal ear infection and then he had some bacteria growing in ear which was the main cause of the excruciating pain. So we were sent off to get ear drop and antibiotics. Once those got in him, he was dandy.
We got back to the house, got Gunnar in bed, then Kyle said he wanted to go black Friday shopping. We attempted and really didn't have a plan so it didn't work out to well. He did decide he wanted to sit outside of GameStop from 12am to 5am for a limited edition Nintendo 3DS...what a nerd. I went home to sleep during that time and ended spending most my night with an unhappy Ryker. Ryker loves his sleep so I knew something was up.
In the morning he was a BIG unhappy camper, so off to urgent care I went with him. He had an ear infection as well. The poor kid just had one a couple weeks ago.
That afternoon Laura and Caleb showed up to spend the next few days with us hanging out. Really that's just what we did. That night we left the boys with the Grandma, Nana, and Poppa and took Caleb to a hockey game. the Saturday we spent our time just hanging out and playing at the house with the five little boys, Ezra, Owen, Gunnar, Zane, and Ryker.

 Sunday was a very special day. For Christmas my parents (we won't be with them for Christmas this ear) got everyone tickets to ride the Polar Express so we drove down to Hood River, OR. The boys had a blast and loved seeing and riding on the train. We were all exhausted by the end, but had a great time. It was the perfect gift. After the train ride we drove back home to Fort Lewis.